’Let the children come to me’… but make sure they are quiet, respectful and behave like adults

Jesus said many controversial and challenging things. After all, he told us to love our enemies, to stop pointing out the fault in others and look at ourselves instead, to turn the other cheek and to give up everything and follow him. Yet possibly the most challenging of all his messages for us as Christians is Matthew 19:14: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” 

Being a Christian parent or carer is not easy. Trying to enthuse your child with a trip to your church on a Sunday morning when they could be playing football, scrolling through the latest TikToks or just lying in bed for yet another hour or two, can be a challenge. There are so many things that draw on their finite time and pull them away from attending church with their family.  

Come to me… or not

However, churches want children; they want young families. After all, they want to grow, and without the next generation this is unlikely to happen. In fact, many churches will actively put forward strategies aimed at encouraging children and their families to attend services and special events. Church leadership meetings will discuss whether it is practical (or theologically sound) to fit a giant bouncy castle in church, or how much mess Messy Church can make without incurring a huge cleaning bill. They will debate if having a kids’ light, bright, twilight, delight, non-fright evening is a good alternative to Halloween, or whether people will just use it as a pre-trick or treat party. They will consider how Minecraft might uphold the Biblical values of building our houses on solid rock.  

Yet once we have persuaded our children or grandchildren to come with us, once they have made the bold choice to enter the building, too often problems arise. Suddenly, the words of Jesus take on a different meaning. It is as if he actually said… 

Let the children come to me… and make sure they stay seated when they do, not wriggling, not getting up and not squabbling over who sits where. 

Let the children come to me… and make sure they are quiet throughout the service, no crying, no laughing, no shouting out the answer ”Jesus” every time the pastor asks a rhetorical question. 

Let the children come to me… but if they can’t see anything because they are sat behind taller adults, tough. We don’t want them to actually come to the front. Jesus was being metaphorical, wasn’t he? 

Let the children come to me… so that you can immediately usher them away to a back room and keep them there for the remainder of the service in order for the rest of us to have a bit of peace and quiet. 

Let the children come to me… as long as they are well groomed, well dressed, well spoken young people. Anything else and perhaps you could keep them at home next week, as the Bishop is coming. 

Let the children come to me… but if they are noisy, or excitable, then could you just bring them to the special “all age service”, when there is an early morning alternative for the rest of the congregation to attend. That way they won’t upset anyone. 

Let the children come to me… when I say me, I don’t mean me. I mean let the children come to someone else, preferably the young intern or one of the students who has returned from university for the summer. 

Let the children come to me… and make sure they aren’t on some modern device. They should be listening to the word of God, not just staring at screens because… hang on, my phone is ringing and I must answer it. 

Let the children come to me… we really want to listen to what they have to say, to give them a voice, to learn from them. But just to clarify, we won’t be implementing any of their ideas, not unless they agree with our five-point youth and families plan that the church leadership team spent three months working on. 

Let the children come to me… as long as they behave the way we were made to in “my day”. They mustn’t do anything to distract anyone from actively listening to the preacher or wake up the half of the church that’s dozed off. 

But what could be done to make our children feel more welcome? Build a giant Lego church and meet inside? Have a special Teddy Bear and Doll service, where Humpty Dumpty leads the worship and Barbie is giving the talk? Meet at 1:15pm, when the youth have finally woken up, and have table service to provide copious amounts of fizzy drinks and unhealthy snacks throughout the talk? Invent a new slot in the service for everyone to run onto the stage, pull out as many wires as possible (preferably not live ones), before being bribed to sit back down? Perhaps these are going too far.  

But I wonder how we might feel if we were to turn up next Sunday, and instead of being welcomed into the service, we were taken to a small side room, given a series of increasingly tired looking accessories to occupy ourselves and asked to colour in yet another picture of Jesus. Then we were brought back into the main church building with ten minutes to go and asked to justify to everyone how we’ve spent the last hour and what important theological truths our colouring has revealed. Well? I think we might feel a little short changed. We certainly might not believe that the kingdom of heaven belongs to us… 

This article is a reworked version of one J.B. Harper originally shared on his blog.